


from these beginnings

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Series: ASoIaF / Game of Thrones fics [6]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Multi, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:21:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23870776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: Various ASOIAF/GOT ficlets originally posted on Tumblr.
Relationships: Arya Stark & Catelyn Tully Stark, Ashara Dayne/Elia Martell, Elia Martell/Rhaegar Targaryen, Joanna Lannister & Rhaella Targaryen
Series: ASoIaF / Game of Thrones fics [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586470
Comments: 30
Kudos: 26
Collections: For Catelyn Stark Fans





	1. Catelyn Stark, I made the world anew

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mihrsuri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mihrsuri/gifts), [Riana1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riana1/gifts), [ariel2me](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel2me/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For @mihrsuri, who asked “GOT, Catelyn Stark, ‘I made the world anew’” for the 3 sentence meme.

Underwater, the thundering current of the Trident is muffled to a dull roar, so Catelyn can hear the flurries of bubbles when she exhales. She is weightless, with nothing but the power of her own strokes to propel her forward. When her lungs begin to ache, she breaches the surface, shimmering and gasping and born anew.


	2. Catelyn, Arya, Horseface

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For anonymous, who asked “Fandom: ASOIAF, Characters: Catelyn + Arya, Prompt: Horseface (the name Sansa and Jeyne bullied her with)” for the 3 sentence ficathon.

Catelyn had been appalled to hear that Jeyne Poole had come up with such a cruel name for Arya, and disappointed to know that Sansa had turned a blind eye to it, but most of all stunned to learn that Arya thought her own mother shared those sentiments.

“You have your father’s face – the only one of my children to look like your father – and you have no idea how happy I was to finally give him a child that had his look.”

Just why she was so happy – so  _ relieved  _ – does not bear repeating to Arya, with those gray eyes, so like Ned’s, brimming with tears, and all Catelyn focuses on is how tightly Arya throws her skinny arms around her.


	3. Elia Martell, exile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For riana-one, who asked “ASoIaF, Elia Martell, exile” for the 3 sentence fic meme.

She is not so churlish that she resents being alive and safe along with her children in Essos, but nor has she forgotten _unbent unbowed unbroken_. More than one courtier has remarked that after all that happened and all that could have happened, Princess Elia should simply be glad that they weren’t murdered in the sack of King’s Landing, and that if she is as clever and as gracious as the stories said she was, she will be content to live out her days unmolested in exile, with no thoughts of revenge.

What Elia still has is precious to her, but what she lost was immeasurable, and the bitter taste of not being allowed to mourn is as sharp as the loss itself.


	4. Ashara Dayne, snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For riana-one, who asked “ASoIaF, Ashara Dayne, snow” for the 3 sentence ficathon.

Brandon brags that the winds of Winterfell are sharp enough to bite through ten layers of clothing and freeze a man in his tracks. Ned shyly reassures her that the summer snows are soft and perfect for snowball fights.

Whoever tells the truth, Ashara knows that no Northern snow could ever be as stinging or as soft as the sands of Dorne are between her toes, and no Stark brother can make her pulse race as Elia does.


	5. Rhaella Targaryen, rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For riana-one, who asked “ASoIaF, Rhaella Targaryen, rescue” for the 3 sentence ficathon.
> 
> Warnings for mentions of sexual assault and sexual harassment.

When Aerys takes such flagrant liberties with Joanna at the bedding, Rhaella can already see how it will play out, as clear as the sun’s rays filtering through the roof of the Sept of Baelor. If no one has ever even tried to rescue the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, no one will rescue the Hand’s wife.

Rhaella, she who has never been rescued, acts to save Joanna in the only way she can, and for the rest of their lives, Joanna hates her for that humiliation and never knows what Rhaella did for her.


	6. Myrcella Baratheon, truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For riana-one, who asked “ASoIaF, Myrcella Baratheon, truth” for the 3 sentence ficathon.

Joffrey is the sun of the Red Keep, and all revolve around him. Myrcella ought to as well, but the truth is that she finds Tommen’s kittens and Shireen’s books far more fascinating than Joffrey’s boasts and vagaries. Enough that she does not care to adjust her orbit, even if it costs her something with her mother.


	7. Elia, dreams, water, wait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For riana-one, who asked “Elia, dreams, water, wait”.

Rhaegar is handsome and gallant and chivalrous, and Elia is already with child within four moons of him cloaking her. By all rights, their marriage promises to be a successful one, and Elia is confident that it will be one, but sometimes, beneath his warm words and gentle manner, she senses an almost unspeakable melancholy, and she is not sure how to address it. Rhaegar turns to his scrolls and his paintings on those difficult days, and although some of his readings are esoteric to her, it seems to ease his grief, and she cannot help but be grateful for that.

Elia finds a sort of peace for herself in watching him quietly at work, cresting her hands over the swell of her belly and dreaming of this child and the ones to come: splashing in the Water Gardens of Dorne, shadowing their father in the Red Keep as they learn the art of ruling, learning impulse at Oberyn’s knee and restraint at Doran’s. She even comes to look forward to their evenings spent with her by the fire and Rhaegar with his scrolls.

When the Starks burn and ten thousand Dornishmen are carved open at the Trident and Tywin Lannister marches on King’s Landing, Elia wishes she had swept Rhaegar’s scrolls into the fire.


	8. Lysa Tully, jealous things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For riana-one, who asked "Lysa Tully, stolen things".

Minisa takes them to the river by herself one day, to teach them how to swim. Catelyn refuses to cup her hands when paddling, no matter how ineffectual her strokes are against the Trident’s current; she likes the water rushing through her splayed fingers, she says. Lysa is nothing so frivolous; she cups her hands precisely as her lady mother demonstrates and propels herself through the water with ease.


	9. Elia Martell, stolen things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For riana-one, who asked "Elia Martell, stolen things".
> 
> Trigger warnings for implied reproductive abuse.

“You and Oberyn are scarcely a year apart or so,” Rhaegar points out reasonably, plaintively, assuredly while Elia sits up in bed, attempting to coax Aegon to latch onto her breast.

“I am not Rhaenys, just as Oberyn is not Aegon and King’s Landing is not Dorne, as you have oft reminded me, husband.” She gives up on trying to nurse Aegon and bows her head in exhaustion; Aegon’s resultant whimpering almost drowns out her next whisper of, “and you seem to forget that Oberyn was my mother’s last child.”


	10. Unnamed Princess of Dorne, five names she might have had

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For arielseaworth, who asked "For the nameless challenge, can I request the unnamed Princess of Dorne? Thank you ❤️"

1\. _Loreza_ , for the cadence and the rhythm in the musical syllables.

2\. _Nymeria_ , for Dorne’s first hero.

3\. _Myriah_ , for the Martell who built so many things in her lifetime – her country back together after a devastating civil war, a happy marriage, heirs into good men – in the hopes that she might build Dorne through alliances as her ancestress did.

4\. _Meria_ , for the Yellow Toad who spoke unbowed, unbent, unbroken into existence, for the woman she hopes to be like when she is eighty (although she does not live that long).

5\. _Aliandra_ , for the princess who accomplished so much more than the flirtations the maesters cared to record in history and nothing else, in the hopes that she might prove the name worth more than the aspersions cast upon it.


	11. Rhaella, brontide (the low rumble of distant thunder)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For @riana-one.

Two thirds of Rhaella’s life have been given to duty and silence, to bruises and cages. “Take heart in your children, princess,” her septa had instructed her. _Your children will be your only consolation_ had been the unspoken meaning. Now one child lies in the mud on the Trident, another clings to her skirts, one more flutters in her womb, and the rest found their end in blood or ashes.

Rhaella is named for an aunt who was the only one to do her duty, an aunt who was sold to the Baratheons as weregild for her siblings’ caprices. Lore holds it that nowhere is the thunder as bone-shuddering as it is as Storm’s End. She wonders if Rhaelle ever heard the brontide, saw the first sparks of lightning, and welcomed it. She wonders if Rhaelle looks upon her grandsons, Baratheon enough to shake the realm with their fury and Targaryen enough to covet the Iron Throne, and if she smiles now.


	12. Elia Martell, panchakanya meme

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @1nsaankahanhai-bkr on Tumblr asked “Elia Martell, Sita and Draupadi from the Panchakanya meme”.

**Draupadi**

one grudge they held || favorite hairstyle ||  _ baptism of fire _ || five finger discount || one big change that they wrought

She is terrified in King’s Landing.

Elia’s health and heritage already count against her, and she cannot give the court any more ammunition by showing fear. But by the old gods and the new and all seven hells, she is terrified. She has no allies in the capital, war rages in five kingdoms, and a fiery madman is her jailer. Rhaegar is gone like smoke to the wind, and Ashara’s illegitimate pregnancy has exiled her back to Starfall. Elia has only Rhaenys, Aegon, and Uncle Lewyn to her name. The first two can do naught but cling to her skirts, and Uncle Lewyn is a solid pillar of support but Aerys’s hostage as well. Other than her family, young Jaime Lannister is the only one to spare her an occasional mournful look.

Elia is a princess twice over and a woman of Dorne, but she is crumbling. 

**Sita**

friends are the family we choose for ourselves || green thumb || captive audience ||  _ no good deed goes unpunished _ || true blue

Elia and her children are at Dragonstone when the Starks burn. Three days later, Aerys summons, or rather, hauls, them to King’s Landing, and when she greets them, Queen Rhaella is a silent wraith with mottled arms. 

Elia thinks of Queen Naerys, and reflects that her goodmother does not even have an Aemon to watch over her, useless though the Dragonknight was.

Ointments and tonics show up in the Queen’s rooms -- not useless concoctions from Pycelle’s stores, but Dornish tinctures smuggled in by Ashara and Larra Blackmonth and Nym. 


End file.
